Stories of Tomorrow - Mission to Mars (2017-2019)
About the project
Stories of Tomorrow (STORIES) is a research and development project funded by the European Commission, involving 15 project partners from 10 countries.
The duration of the project is 30 months, starting in January 2017.
The project will use the concept of storytelling a catalyst for the effective interaction between art and STEM disciplines which share in many ways similar values, similar themes and similar characteristics.
The STORIES project proposes to introduce creative approaches in STEM education to generate alternative ideas and strategies within scientific enquiry as an individual or group, and reasoning critically between these.
The project will design and test a new vision for teaching and help develop strategies for how teachers’ roles and conditions can support and enable deeper learning for students. To do that, the project will include and use innovative and meaningful digital technologies, such as advanced interfaces, learning analytics, visualization dashboards and Augmented/Virtual reality applications and build a storytelling platform where students will develop and publish stories about a Mars Mission.
THE STORIES OBJECTIVES
Storytelling is a great way to support the development of students’ inquiry skills and help them gain initial scientific experience while at the same time enable to them to use the potential of the imagination and creativity.
Therefore, the STORIES project will:
- Develop a pedagogical framework that builds on the essential features of creative Deeper Learning in STEM and supports creativity as a generic element in the processual and communicative aspects of the pedagogy by integrating arts (virtual arts, performing arts, design, music).
- Develop an advanced storytelling platform enriched with innovative interfaces (VR and AR) to support students’ creations. The creations of the students (paintings, models, dioramas and constructions, 3D objects and landscapes, animations, science videos and science theatre plays) will be captured according to their scenarios and will be integrated in storylines. The storylines will be available in the form of ebooks while the consortium will deploy a series of advanced interfaces (3D Worlds VR and Augmented Realty) to bring students stories in life.
- Implement the proposed approach and the technologies to real settings in Germany, Greece, Portugal, France, Finland and Japan. The project will involve 60 teachers and 3000 students (5th and 6th grade – 10-12 years old) in the proposed activities. The pilots will last 5-6 months in each school and they will be repeated twice (Pilot A and Pilot B in Figure).
- Ensure a continued learning process based on the deeper learning paradigm that addresses not just intellectual ability but also motivational ability. To accomplish a holistic assessment of STEM mastery within the deeper learning paradigm in science education, we will develop standardized assessment tools that cover intellectual and motivational ability.
- Design and implement a systematic raising awareness strategy that will contribute to the effective communication of the project’s results and outcomes. The STORIES Digital Library including all students’ stories that will be developed during the project will be created to disseminate the visions and the work of the young students.
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| Mars in a nutshell | Trip to Mars | Explore Mars | Living on Mars |
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| Assessment Tools | Classroom Experiments | WRO Hellas Workshops | STORIES Poster |